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While that was a welcome change, a start right from scratch had to be made. Having blogged from the WordPress platform for 3 years before that, it helped me maintain the writing frequency that I cultivated over the years – while it took time initially for google to index my site, visitors were far in between but picked up in 5-6 months down the line.

Today, 1 year and 3 days later, life on my blog seems to have come back to normal, the odd comment here and there, the growing number of views and increasing no of followers. It can, however, do still better and I’m sure it will into its second year of existence.

A couple of things I have learned since moving out on my own (own domain)

*~* Visitors won’t find you unless you put your blog out there for people to notice

*~* People need a good enough reason to visit your site. Else they aren’t going to visit. Focus on content.

*~* People tend to not comment too much when a blog is hosted on a website (unlike a blogging platform where people don’t hesitate to comment) but you’ll still notice growth in the no of hits your website gets in a day.

If you understand the above 3 points, your website will do just fine. That said, a website needs a whole lot more work (in terms of getting noticed by fellow bloggers – Indiblogger does well that way) A lot of people monetize their blog, write for companies, get paid and that’s how the blog pays for itself. I do nothing of that sort.I don’t prefer to. Blogging is something personal to me and I keep the commercialization aspect of it as far as I can. Maybe in a few years when I get a bit more famous and let my work speak for myself… I’d have a website which does that… but not this one, this one is special in more ways that one.

When you visit my blog (on the computer) the first thing you’ll see is.. a request which asks you “Can you turn on the light please”

only after which you enter my BLOG. The “Turn on the light thing” is something that has impressed many who have visited the site, and something I am eternally grateful to my cousin for getting it done, which if it was for real, I would have to pay a really high electricity bill every day.

My blog saw the light of day, thanks to my cousin. Cheers to him! And to those who visit the site, besides adding one number to the ‘website hits’, you become an integral part of the every growing family of the extra…aaamile.

One of those random posts that I just decide to talk write about myself

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What is it for you?

Do you fall into the group of people who dresses up in the morning to work, for you simply have to, you don’t have much of a choice? or the second group where you wake up to a possibility of having a new day to look forward to and having fun at the work you do?

In the first instance, you’re just existing by doing what you’re supposed to do while in the second you have a new challenge to look forward to. If you’ve known me long enough, you’d probably know which group I’d fit in perfectly.

I’m different, a total misfit in most cases… but then again, with me – you will probably see more of the unconventional than ‘the-right-thing-do-to’ approach, which works more times than not. I’m a firm believer of the phrase “Expect the Unexpected”

Could I actually Love what I do?Most definitely! otherwise, I would never do it. .Simple. Let me tell you something that I love to do – which is teaching or training or simply interacting with a group of people. I know I’d do well because I am blessed with a good skill set in that particular field and I can keep doing it in a loop. They’ve been times I’ve even lost my voice at the end of a day/week, for that’s how much I love to do what I do.
My dad recently told me, that even when I talk to different people in everyday conversations(outside of a teaching/training environment) I talk using all kinds of intonation, stressing on certain words (which is not necessarily required) just to make myself understood better and put the RIGHT message across. [no wonder why I stress on voice modulation and Intonation in all my training and teaching sessions] People might not find the difference, but that’s just me… being Me.

I love being myself. I’m the biggest fan of myself and I could care less what others think. That’s how I’ve cultivated the ‘I Don’t care’ attitude in my life. There was a time in my life I got affected a whole lot by what people said and tried changing myself to suit them, I only ended up hurting myself because I wasn’t being true to my own identity. Lesson learned the hard way, lesson learned nevertheless.

I might have been around on the earth for only 35 years so far but I’ve learnt a lot in the time I’ve been around, I’ve tried a few different things, failed in some, done well in others – however life is one big mystery, that I’ve still not been able to solve and I’m not sure if I’d ever be able to solve it EVER! That said, wherever I go, whatever I do, there are always stories to be told, emotions to be expressed and situations that need to be handled – and this blog gives me that space to do all of that.

While not everything can be spoken out these days, writing is the next best option. No wonder there are so many of us bloggers out there! If given a choice to speak or write, I’d probably chose speaking over writing. And I’d do it with every bit of what I have inside of me, Intonation, modulation and all of that… for who are we kidding, talking in a dead tone is equal to not talking at all.

There are times that I feel, after writing a blog post like this;

Why did I write it?

Was it to let other people an insight into my life? Not really! A few lines written here aren’t really going to make a world of a difference. However, sometimes it works as a reminder to myself about the little things that do matter to me, that just needs to be written down. Nothing like reading it a few years down the line… and asking myself “Was I really like that back then?”

You may not always feel the need for a support system or someone to turn to when things get hard, but there will be a point in your life when that’s all you need.

Extremely touched by the few words spoken by the Indian Captain Virat Kohli about his wife, at the post-match interview after winning the series 5-1 vs South Africa.

He says:

“My wife who keeps me motivated deserves a lot of credit. I want to thank my wife. She has been a huge factor. She deserves a lot of appreciation for it. She has been criticized a lot, but she is one person who kept pushing me”

Class act Mr. Virat Kohli, well said, very classy and he couldn’t have got any better platform than to say in on television for the whole world to watch. It got the whole world talking, within seconds of which it was trending on twitter like crazy!

Thanking his wife and pointing out that she often gets (unnecessarily) criticised when things get tough. Having a strong support system is important for everyone. We all need to know someone has our back. Happy that he has finally found his.

Some of the things I’ve noticed over the past couple of months this year so far…

..time is flying like nobody’s business. Morning and Evenings pass like a blink of an eye!..babies are growing rapidly..clocks are running fast..people are hardly spending more than 5 minutes to eat food..driving speeds exceeding 80 and 100kph endangering lives..telephone conversations are restricted to hello & the message, no pleasantries exchanged coz there is apparently no time to do so.

January’s gone, we’re already more than halfway through to February. March is around the corner… that’s 3 months passing by fairly quickly. Time is literally flying.. so are people’s lives getting busier. I go weeks and sometimes months without speaking to my best friend.

Life needs to seriously slow down. Too much is happening in little time.

Life’s getting very monotonous, people doing the same things day in and day out…

There’s more to life than the ‘wake-up – work – eat – sleep – repeat’ routine right? Tell me there is! In Goa, life’s a bit better though, we still make time to do different things, but that too is changing slowly.

Does anyone think like me, that time is just going by so fast lately? I don’t know why! but it does feel that as I grow older.. time’s speeding up. When we’re small, we want to grow older and now that we’re all this grown-up version of ourselves.. it feels like I wanna be a kid again.
I don’t believe I’ve changed much over the years, but I do miss (at times) the more careless me, the more carefree version that I was, the limited things that were available and the fun times we had when younger and now.. its like There’s just too..much of everything. I wish I were a kid again.

We’ve always associated ourselves with the hero/heroine of a movie when we watch it… “I was him/her once upon a time…”

Let me then take you through some of the characters in some of the Bollywood movies, I closest resemble to – Bollywood ishstyle!

I am Karan(2nd part of the movie) from Hum Tum, the understanding and the good friend to Rhea, yet at the same time, not quite there with his illogical thinking…

I am Sameer Sharma of Mohabbatein, carry the picture of the girl I love, in my heart (not in my wallet) and bumping into her often yet unable to say anything 😛

I am definitely (at times) Aditya Kashyap in Jab We Met, waiting to hop on a train, leaving all my problems behind

The closest character I have practically lived would be Rahul Prakash Udyavar(Shahid Kapoor)& Ram Shankar Nikumbh(Aamir Khan) in Paatshala & Taare Zameen Par [both roles being teachers – minus the music and dance of course] 😛😛

I am Sameerin Dil Chahta hai, a genial, well-meaning, desperately romantic, but confused guy who is prone to romantic infatuations and believes to have found true love whenever he gets attracted to a girl (s)

I am Sunil from Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, a happy-go-lucky scamp and yet everything he wants he doesn’t get…from his results to the girl he loves (which he eventually doesn’t get)

While I have watched so many Bollywood movies over the years, there’s a little something in every movie I’d relate to in the characters.

How about you mention the top 5 characters in Bollywood movies that resembles the closest you in real life? C’mon, give it a try! It’s fun… Aditi? Sonali? Pradita? Rekha?

You know how while growing up you always wanted to be part of a group, a division of people that like to do the same kind of things etc or in more today’s language – ‘A particular category’that one should belong to?

Well..for me, I’ve really never belonged to any group in particular or have never tried to fit into one. It just wasn’t and still definitely isn’t me. I always was interested in different things but could never settle on one thing that I always wanted to be a part of.

What does that say about me then? Am I an anti-social being? Not really. I am a free spirited individual, that understands that life isn’t about going one direction or being part of a certain working system or doing fun things with a limited no of people. It is okay to do things randomely, while some might work others might not – but then again, isn’t life all about trial and error? Nobody knows the correct formala as yet.

I discovered blogging one day and I’ve not looked back since. I write because I love to.. its been 5-6 years now (time flies) can’t imagine I have been blogging all these years, particulary about the stuff that I write about, which doesn’t really fall into any category as such, but random – its just about anything and everything I see hear & feel.

It feels good to not be a part of something, at least that way you aren’t blindly following what other people are doing but on the contrary, you can do you own thing – which I believe is always the better option.While some appreciate randomness, others don’t. But that’s okay – We’re not here to please people but to make ourselves happy and if what we do makes us happy, nothing like it!

I join Sejal Kumar with the same opinion, I am #NOTACATEGORY.

Do follow her channel for some really genuine talent on display, through her YouTube Channel Sejal Kumar

She’s really really good guys! Give her channel a view and you’ll end up following her.

PADMAN– the movie release date of which is tomorrow 09.02.2018 and the whole nation is already going crazy.

AND I’m not sure if its because of the concept or for the actor or simply because it’s easy to see and not talk about it. We all know what the movie is about and everyone’s excited about it, men, women, children.. even Ravi Shastri(the Indian Men’s Cricket team coach)who is in South Africa at the moment seems to be interested/excited whatever!

And what’s this all about the PadMan challenge&clicking a pic with a sanitary pad to bring menstruation into the open – on social media?

India has gone bonkers! BIG TIME!

I read on Facebook yesterday that“Ravi Shastri tagged Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli and tennis player Leander Paes to take the PadMan challenge” I had to research a little bit to find out, what the PadMan challenge was all about to know what it meant.

This is going way out of hand really! What’s the BIG deal?

Yes, we all know what menstruation is, we understand what women go through every month… what’s to bring out in the open? Akshay Kumar goes one step further saying; “Somewhere it is a man’s fault, and somewhere it is not entirely, because it is a subject like periods which was not discussed in our homes from the beginning….”

Now, what did we do?

My question is:-Why is a country like India so obsessed with women-related issues? Be it Menstrual health/hygiene, mention-of-mothers at beauty pageants, women showing a bra strap, a women’s cleavage or simply what a woman’s choice is? Or even why Smriti Mandhana is so cute? 😝(the last of which even intrigues me)

I will be going to watch the movie as it releases tomorrow and you can be sure to expect a post about what I thought of it. Pads, menstruation, periods or a simple pink underwear, whatever it may be, that they show in the film tomorrow.

I will have an opinion..and you’ll know what it is, RIGHT HERE on the extra..aaamile.

When we talk of Horror (in Bollywood), the first thought is Raaz, but now with Bipasha Basu doing films in the so-called “thriller” & “horror” genre, she is the undisputed Queen of Bollywood Horror.
From movies like “Raaz”, “Raaz 3” to “Aatma”, “Alone”, “Rakht”, “Darna Zaroori Hai” etc, you’d think she is doing a fairly good job of either spooking people or getting spooked. She clearly enjoys doing films like these.

But do horror movies spook out the actress in the real life?She claims it does but she nevertheless enjoys watching them, however the need to hold hands, shut her eyes and ask someone else what’s happening on screen is what normally happens while watching one.

I personally enjoy reading/watching horrors or thrillers, be it a book or a movie. So as time goes on, I am increasingly becoming a big fan of Bipasha Basu. I do watch movies only for its entertainment value, I take nothing back from it after its done, other than maybe ideas from it’s storyline – something I could use when I start writing in that genre myself. I’ve always wanted to venture into writing horror/thriller or whatever you call it… I guess I’d need to read and watch more in that genre if I have to have sparks lit up in my mind of a story that creeps not only the reader but for me too (while writing it).

While I work upon a good story with different ideas floating around in my mind, I hope to spook the living daylights out of my readers, soon… how soon that could be, is anyone’s guess.

Just in case you haven’t realized, the picture above has6 fingers,LOOK AGAIN! You might want to count how many you have.

What an interesting article! Made such interesting reading, most of which didn’t make much sense to me (I’ll have to admit shamelessly), but the picture was appealing, so I thought why not cut out the picture and write a post on it? Good idea right!

I’m never a fact & figures person (exactly what the article talks about), I thought let me take it & put a ‘Savio Spin’ to it and make it my own. [Expect nothing serious here]

Now we all know how wonderful it is to have children (rather make them). One night of passion, a whole lifetime of waiting for this one day – expectations, pleasure and the excitement… and then bam after 9 months, a New life.. a New journey and a big hole in the parents pockets for at least the next 21 years of that child’s life.

Wait! Did I say make? Make Children? Hmm. ‘Procreate’ – sounds better! As wonderful as the whole procedure is to procreation, looking at the future… and the picture above, you might want to push back ‘that moment’a bit… this is a certainly a very very costly affair! But then on the other side – nothing is ever cheap, even in India.

I am still in phase I, which is wishing my friends who have babies and attending their baptism parties. Babies are cute and all.. but boy! do they come at a price? 9 months in the mother’s stomach and 21 years of eating into the parent’s savings.

Children are the biggest blessings to parents, God’s personal gift to every married couple. I myself am a big fan of children (having taught them in schools) Of course children at school and children at home are a whole different set of people. I love children, especially little baby girls <3

If you’re interested in the facts & figures of how much it costs to raise a kid, read the Times of India today or online – Pg 15 (I read it in the Goa Edition) very interesting article. Read it, cut it out and show it to your child when he turns 21 😛😛